


The Driving Thing

by Rainsaber



Series: The Non-Superhero Stuff [2]
Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers go spider hunting, Frostiron if you really squint hard, Gen, Hypothermia, Irondad, Loki showing off as a frost giant, Loki the reluctant Avenger in training, Mama bear Bruce, Near character death, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Post Infinity War, Survival story, Vomiting, blizzard, car crash, driving anxiety, migraines, spiderson
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2019-08-24 03:56:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16632455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainsaber/pseuds/Rainsaber
Summary: Driving is serious business. So serious that Peter’s first experience on Homecoming night left him with a little bit of anxiety. Scratch that, a whole LOT of anxiety. And ignoring the problem only gets Peter as far as his eighteenth birthday where Tony is concerned. The bigger issue though is what happens to Peter when something happens to Tony. Sequel to The College Thing.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Remember how I said I wasn’t doing a sequel in the near future? Oops. But to be fair I did update Ohana. And I’m working on the next chapter to it, I swear. Just an FYI: this sequel to The College Thing is set about eight months after that. We’ll see if this ends up being just two chapters or three when it’s all done with. As a general note too, this entire series is post-infinity war. I still have PTSD from that movie and I swear if they kill Tony in the next one we are gonna have a motherfucking problem because I need my Irondad Spiderson goddamnit and fanfiction is how I cope with life. That said enjoy this first chapter and leave me some feedback if you can! Thanks for reading!

Here’s the next thing.

 

Driving a car is fucking terrifying.

 

Understandably, the first time Peter did it, it was for a potentially world-saving reason.

 

Granted at the time Peter didn’t have his permit either (May had sold her car a few months back with the excuse that she didn’t even use it anymore—though Peter knew she did it to get caught up on bills), so there was an ice cube’s chance in hell he would have done a good job of it anyway.

 

And on top of that he’d been forced to drive through the outer boroughs of New York City while not getting himself or anyone else killed also while disobeying every traffic law known to man.

 

Wrecking a car had been the least of his worries that night, and after the whole ordeal had been over and done with he felt reasonably justified in deciding he would never drive a car again.

 

Public transit existed for a reason.

 

A growing spider with a monstrous metabolism needed to burn off excess energy too.

 

And then Tony went and got him a car for his eighteenth birthday in June.

 

When Peter finally recovered enough from the shock he found himself behind the wheel of a pristine Audi R8 V10 blue Spyder with red pin stripes. Tony was sitting in the seat beside him making a joke about his indecision on the color. But Peter didn’t really hear him because all he could think about were car horns, Ned screaming into his ear, and flashes of headlights that were either too dim until the last moment or bright enough to actually burn holes into his retinas. He tried to remember the breathing exercises his therapist taught him, but Tony was still going on and on about the new tech features and what things did and—

 

Peter turned to Tony with the same wide-eyed vacant and fearful look he had when Tony first pushed him to sit behind the wheel. “I don’t have my license,” he blurted out.

 

Tony turned, and stared at him for a while in dawning disbelief. “Are you serious?”

 

“Y-Yeah…I… I never…”

 

“ _How_ have you been getting by without basic identification? You’re eighteen, now, that’s kind of important.”

 

“May said that she’d teach me, but there was just never any time.”

 

“You could have told me, Pete. I would have helped you.”

 

“I know you would have, but it’s not all that necessary and why even learn if it’s just this big complicated thing with so many rules—”

 

“Peter, it’s really not that difficult.”

 

“I kind of beg to differ.”

 

“How can you beg to differ if you’ve never even—”

 

“Because the last time I got in a car I wrecked it,” Peter exploded, shaking hands flying free of his previous death grip on the wheel.

 

Tony cautiously laid a hand on Peter’s right shoulder. “Okay, take a breath. Can you do that for me?”

 

Peter covered his face with his hands, leaned back in the seat as far away from the steering wheel as he possibly could, and exhaled.

 

“Care to start at the beginning,” Tony prodded. “Because I’m sensing there’s a story here.”

 

Peter sighed and dropped his hands in his lap. “Homecoming. I couldn’t exactly follow the Vulture to that warehouse just by webbing after him and he was getting away so I kind of had to make a split second decision and kind of sort of steal Flash’s parent’s car.”

 

Tony digested and processed the information in his typical emotionless manner. “Aside from the fact that this little shit probably deserved it, you’re telling me you drove from Midtown Tech to a warehouse in the outer boroughs in Friday night traffic without actually knowing how to use it?”

 

Peter ran a nervous hand through his hair to at least try and hide the tremors. “Ned kind of coached me through it with an online manual through blue tooth, but…yeah?”

 

Tony made a noise of mild interest. “We can work with that.”

 

This time it was Peter’s turn to stare at his mentor in disbelief. “Okay—How can that be your answer to everything?!”

 

“Do you not like the car?”

 

“No! I love the car! It’s just… If I haven’t even turned over the engine and I’m already through my breathing exercises to keep from having an actual panic attack how am I ever going to be able to-to drive it and not ruin it or anybody else’s car?!”

 

“Practice.”

 

And Tony meant it. From then on the billionaire made Peter sit in a car on a weekly basis. They never turned it on. And every week it was a different model. Every week Peter had to identify where things were and what they did. Gradually, just sitting in the car became comfortable, and Peter counted that as a personal victory. He could even hold the keys and insert them into the ignition without his hands shaking.

 

It was mid September by the time Tony wordlessly reached over and actually turned the key of the Acura NSX they were sitting in. Predictably, the engine roared to life and Peter freaked. “Wait— _What are you doing?!_ ”

 

“Peter, this thing is NOT going to do anything unless YOU tell it to,” Tony reminded him. “Calm down.”

 

“Then why did you turn it on,” the boy exclaimed from his plastered position against the driver’s seat.

 

“Just put your hands on the wheel—”

 

“Idon’twannagoanywhere!”

 

“ _Peterrr._ We’re _not_ moving an _inch_ today, I promise you.”

 

And they hadn’t. But it still had Peter terrified enough to warrant Thai take out and a Star Wars-thon later that evening. When he had enough time to wind down from the day, smushed between feather pillows on the most evilly plush couch you could possibly imagine in the common space for Tony’s private suite, Peter thought back on it and felt incredibly guilty. Mr. Stark was investing a lot of time and patience into Peter getting over his fear and Peter had a near meltdown today after weeks of maybe being okay.

 

“If you keep thinking about it,” Tony nudged, finishing off the rest of his coke. “You’re gonna miss Vader telling Luke he’s his father. Spoiler alert.”

 

“I don’t think spoiler alerts were a thing back then, Mr. Stark,” Peter said with a smile. “I just…you don’t have to keep doing all of this, you know.”

 

“There’s a lot of things I don’t _have_ to do, kid. Helping you just happens to be on the ‘want to’ list.”

 

“I know, but… I know I’m a pain in the ass with the driving thing.”

 

Tony gave him a weird side-glance. “Why would you think that if you didn’t hear me actually say it? Please don’t tell me you’ve started reading tabloids.”

 

“What? No! Why would I—”

 

“You’re _not_ a pain in the ass. You’re progress in the making. Don’t make me get the Ben and Jerry’s out.”

 

That made Peter smile, much as he tried not to.

 

Early October was when Tony had Peter shift gears for the first time, and when they both found out Peter got migraines.

 

Though the steering wheel caved under the pressure of Peter’s fingers, he managed somehow to not break the car or anything else on the closed course Tony had him drive at the compound. It was right after Peter put the car in park and let himself actually relax that he felt it start. He didn’t even know what it was at first or how to describe it, but it was a weird crawling feeling in his head with little blurry spots that started to erupt in front of him. It gave him a sensation that the ground was still moving despite the fact that he knew he just parked the car.

 

He opened his mouth to say something, but Tony had already given him a congratulatory “Great job, kid,” and pat on the shoulder as he got out and walked across the garage to toss the keys to DUM-E. Peter tried to shake the weird feeling and follow the genius quickly, but the loud sound the car door made when he closed it hurt his brain and reverberated down every single bone in his body. He had to brace himself against the side of the car to keep from falling over. Why was the ground still moving if he wasn’t? The lights were annoyingly bright, the smells of the garage slightly nauseating, but not overly so. It was kind of like sensory overload, but different… because the pain was so much worse.

 

“Talk to me, kid,” the man whispered, by his side in seconds. “Are your senses going nuts?”

 

“Different,” Peter forced out. But when he spoke, he also lost control of his stomach and fell forward onto his hands and knees, vomiting some of lunch and some bile onto the concrete floor of the garage.

 

Tony had his arms around him to keep Peter from falling into his own grossness, but he still ended up a shaking tearful mess. On top of making his headache worse throwing up was the one thing Peter hated most in the world. He tried to talk, to tell Tony that this wasn’t sensory overload, but he couldn’t make his lips form the words. He just kept making desperate noises, and Tony kept muttering words of comfort and support.

 

“Can you stand up,” Tony eventually asked, quietly next to his ear.

 

Peter thought about it, but his arms and legs were like limp noodles, so he shook his head in response (OWWW bad idea bad idea bad idea).

 

“Okay, I’m gonna take you down to Bruce and we’ll figure out what’s wrong.” (Oh God stop shouting) “If you need to throw up again, that is the last thing in the world I could possibly care about.” Stop talking—stop talking—stop talking!—“You do what you have to. Just take a few minutes first.”

 

Peter gripped the arm of the man’s jacket weakly as he tried to breathe. “Head hurts,” he managed to say, voice shaking. “Make it stop—please!”

 

In the end, the migraine lasted fifteen hours, even with Peter’s sensory overload meds taking the edge off. When he was well enough to try and recall the events of that day he thinks he might have scared Tony quite a bit because he remembered the man talking to him with that telltale tone of being seriously freaked out (which for the record Peter had only heard a handful of times outside of superheroing), though Peter remembered none of what had been said. He only had the twin looks of worry from both Mr. Stark _and_ Dr. Banner to go by the next day.

 

When Peter woke up the next morning he didn’t feel an ounce of pain and oddly enough felt refreshed and cheery, despite also feeling weak and hungry. Bruce was wary to give him a full breakfast, but after Peter demolished some plain cereal and kept it down, the scientist let him have whatever he wanted. So Peter broke his own breakfast record for pancakes. Bruce diagnosed it as a migraine, especially after listening to Peter describe what he remembered. Tony wasn’t fully convinced that was what it was, but nonetheless he grunted and quipped, “Welcome to the migraine club, kid. I’m introducing you to coffee.”

 

Bruce swiveled in their direction so fast Peter thought he’d break the poor lab chair. “No—no—no! You are NOT introducing him to coffee, Tony,” Bruce threatened.

 

But Peter did try it all the same. And unsurprisingly he hated it. Peter tried to dump it down the drain after that one dreadful sip, but Tony snatched it out of his hand and drank it himself, muttering something about God’s gift to man. Peter just shrugged the whole thing off and went back to his soda. Adults were weird.

 

They didn’t start noticing a pattern until two more car freakouts (learning how to reverse and safely avoid obstacles respectively) and his final midterm. Peter was curled up against the toilet in the attached bathroom of the compound lab having thrown up for the third time when Tony asked him what he’d done right before it all started. When Peter got his lips to form the words ‘last midterm’ Tony got that look on his face, the kind where puzzle pieces finally slotted together.

 

“Huh,” his mentor vocalized, with distant interest.

 

Peter wanted to ask, but just ended up heaving again.

 

The next morning when Peter was inhaling waffles Tony had already spoken to Bruce and though it was a bit backwards, it made perfect sense that stress was the precipitating factor and the release of said stress the cause for the migraines. This time, Peter was the skeptical one, not because it didn’t make sense but because he really _really_ didn’t want it to make sense. Stress management was an on-going topic of conversation between Peter, Tony, Bruce, May, and Peter’s therapist. But Tony refused to let up on Peter’s driving lessons. Especially when the last three sessions ended with no sudden onset migraine. And not for nothing, but Peter could actually get through an entire lesson without shaking.

 

It was now December and he’d just submitted his last final to his professor in the form of a fifteen-page paper.

 

The most he’d ever done in high school was ten, and that one had been on accident because the limit was seven, but it was about bioengineering and he and Dr. Banner had _just_ had what Tony described as a nerd-session about the very thing Peter had to write the paper on. This college paper wasn’t as easy and he’d been agonizing over it for the past three weeks because a.) it was a final that determined half his grade, b.) it was for a professor whose material Peter and Dr. Banner quoted to each other all the time, and c.) it was the end of his first semester as part of the new distance learning program Mr. Stark set up for him. So Peter _needed_ to blow them out of the water to prove that Mr. Stark had been right to take on such a financial risk with his company.

 

Huh. That could totally be parts c AND d together.

 

Once he gave it the final final final final final read through and checked seven times that the correct version was attached, Peter hit the send button and promptly dropped his tired head onto the pillow of his crossed arms.

 

He knew he’d get a migraine after all of this.

 

But it was worth it because he was done.

 

He’d made it through his first semester of distance MIT.

 

Just as the migraine was starting to creep in, Peter heard Mr. Stark enter the lab and cross over to him on soft feet. As predicted, the billionaire dropped a tall glass of water gently next to Peter on the table with a single pill. After that he laid a warm hand on Peter’s back and rubbed some soothing circles.

 

“You know the drill, Underoos,” Tony murmured.

 

Peter groaned, curling further in on himself.

 

“Come on, Pete, you know you need it.”

 

Peter lifted his head with a wince and begrudgingly took the pill and drained the glass of water. “Why do they always wait until I’m done,” Peter groaned. “It’s like reward torture. S’not fair…”

 

“I know. We’re working on it, bud. But congrats on your first semester, kid. I’m really proud of you.”

 

As Tony slung one of Peter’s arms across his shoulders and helped him get more steadily to his feet Peter tried to not slur his words too badly. “But won’t know m’grades til Chrismas.”

 

“So I can hold off on the congratulations for giving yourself weekly migraines because of some letters,” Tony asked, steering his kid into the elevator. “You kicked ass, therefore you deserve a break. It’s just like superheroing.”

 

“S’not a word…”

 

“Well, excuse me, Mr. Walking Dictionary.”

 

“Walking Oww…”

 

“Uh huh,” the billionaire said, pulling Peter more securely against him as they exited onto Tony’s floor where Peter’s room was located. Tony steered him toward the bed and maneuvered him down against the pillows, pulling off the kids shoes and pulling the covers up.

 

“You dn’t haveta stay ev-evry time…”

 

“I know I don’t,” he whispered, running his hand through Peter’s hair as he sat down on the edge of the bed. “Lights out, kid. Let your body rest.”

 

Peter tried to mumble something about how unfair it was that May spilled the beans to Tony about Peter’s instant-sleep secret, but he was already out.

 

The next morning Peter noted with a little bit of pride that he woke up before 10AM. There was a covered tray on his bedside table next to his smartphone. The green notification light was blinking, but Peter didn’t worry about May because Tony always called her when Peter got one of his migraines. And speaking of said genius, the man was currently sitting in a chair next to Peter’s bed working on a tablet with readers perched on his nose. It was only when Peter eyed the full water bottle next to the bedside table on the floor that he realized one major achievement.

 

“Hey, I didn’t puke,” Peter said with a lazy smile, pushing himself up against the pillows.

 

“Nope,” Tony praised. “But don’t you even think about getting out of that bed before you eat something, because I checked with Friday and she ratted you out for not eating dinner like I told you to last night.”

 

Peter groaned. “Sorry, I just wanted to get that stupid paper done. Stopping and starting just makes it take forever.”

 

“You may be enhanced, and we may know a fair amount of aliens, but you’re still human just like me. And we humans like our breaks. Food too.”

 

“They probably don’t like being called aliens, Mr. Stark,” Peter said taking the tray of food from Tony’s hands.

 

“Not debatable until that food is in your stomach, Parker,” he quipped, snagging a few blueberries and going right back to the schematics on his tablet.

 

Peter tried to make sense of them backwards and figured it must have been the nanosuits the man was working on. Fine-tuning them had turned into a bit of a headache where damage and the regeneration rate was concerned, but where Peter grew frustrated Tony either kept a steady head or swapped to another puzzle to keep them both productive. Peter sifted through the fruit bowl for a strawberry at the bottom, his gaze briefly glancing over the part of his mentor’s chest where a nasty scar remained underneath his shirt.

 

Peter hadn’t worked up the courage to open up to Tony or his therapist about all that had happened, and all they both had to endure to simply exist, all because of one purple asshole’s selfishness. Peter didn’t even like thinking of his name. It always led to nightmares and memories of that time where truth twisted and distorted to keep him trapped, torturing him with all he couldn’t prevent and what could have happened. The sheer awful thing was no one knew how much he remembered. And Peter was going to keep it that way.

 

Because the only evidence that was left on Tony was a physical scar.

 

He was alive, and Peter could live with that for now.

 

Peter might talk about it, one day, maybe.

 

He popped the strawberry into his mouth and averted his gaze, deciding it was either now or never. “I was thinking…”

 

“I’m shocked,” Tony droned.

 

Peter served him his best Tony stare. “Can we take the car out today?”

 

“Sure,” the genius replied without looking up. “I just have to get Clint to fix his shitty park job with the quinjet and we’ll be all set.”

 

“No, I mean… _out_.”

 

Tony looked up, but kept his expression neutral. “You feel ready?”

 

Peter nodded. “Yeah,” he said with some actual confidence for once.

 

Tony smiled that proud dad smile which instantly made Peter feel like he wasn’t that much of a screw up after all.

 

But before Tony could respond, the Avengers alarm blared.

 

Tony rolled his eyes and groaned loudly. “Fucking really,” he muttered as he got up, tossed the tablet and his readers onto Peter’s bedside table, and exited the bedroom with Peter following closely behind.

 

In the common room Steve was the only Avenger physically present, while the others were either videoed in or patched in through audio.

 

“This better be important,” the billionaire groused to the other Avengers when they entered the common space. “Because I swear if this involves mutant sea snakes again, I’m out!”

 

“Not so nautical, Captain Ahab,” Clint jabbed from one of the monitors. “Just an orphaned Hydra cell we accidently smoked out. And by we I mean Scott and Sam.”

 

“Is birdbrain badmouthing us again,” Scott complained via video chat, panting as he was currently in pursuit. “This is totally his fault by the way. Did he get to that part yet?”

 

“Guys,” Sam cut in through the audio feet. “Can we not?! Steve, we’re gonna need some major backup. They Frankensteined some massive alien tech bomb and they’re gonna reach Manhattan in two hours at the rate they’re flying.”

 

“Can I help this time,” Peter asked, already knowing the answer, but asking anyway as habit.

 

To his and Tony’s surprise, Steve didn’t answer right away. “Well…”

 

“No,” Tony instantly vetoed.

 

“Hey-hey,” Peter said, jumping on the opportunity. “Cap did not immediately say no for the first time in like ever so that defaults to an automatic yes!”

 

Tony rolled his eyes. “Your flawed logic continues to astound me, young padawan. You’re benched! These are not your average car nabbers—”

 

Peter deflated and tried not to pout as he slumped into a bar stool by the kitchen island. “Aw, come on! I did pretty good against those earth worms last month!”

 

“We do not speak of they-that-shall-not-be-named, Lightning Boy.”

 

“And that’s my neighborhood,” Peter continued to argue in a higher pitch, pointing towards the big screen. “How much more home turf can I get?!”

 

“Tony,” Steve interjected, laying a hand on the billionaire’s shoulder. “They’re minutes out from Queens. We’re gonna need all the help we can get with keeping civilians out of the way. And it might be a good idea to start introducing Peter to the team on a more formal basis anyway.”

 

Tony had his jaw set. He very clearly wasn’t happy about it. But Peter could so care less because Captain freaking America just pleaded his case to Ironman. He could totally die happy even as a non-official Avenger yet.

 

Tony sighed and gave Peter’s hero-worshipping stare of Steve a withering glare. “I think you ended up with the sweeter deal after the divorce, Cap,” the billionaire groused. Then he turned more fully to address the puppy dog in the room. “Conditions—”

 

Peter sat up straight as a rod. “Name them.”

 

“First: If you start feeling the least bit weird you don’t keep it to yourself, you got me? You tell me or you tell Steve and then you fall back. You are NOT having two migraines inside of twenty-four hours, and if you do you’re off patrol for a month.”

 

Peter groaned. “Really?”

 

“I’m sorry, did we skip the part where you still need our permission to join Avenger missions? I think we did. _You still need our permission to join Avenger missions._ ”

 

Peter rolled his eyes, but caught Steve giving Peter a look. He bowed his head a bit in embarrassment and muttered an apology.

 

“Second: You stick to civilians unless Steve or I need you otherwise.”

 

Peter shrugged. “That’s easy—”

 

“I mean it.”

 

“All over it.”

 

“And third: You stay in communication with us at all times. No going off on your own. No Karen got disconnected from Friday’s feed or any of that bullcrap from last time, you got me?”

 

“Gotcha.”

 

Tony scrutinized him for another second before nodding in the direction of the lab. “Go grab your suit, Spidey.”

 

Peter had never run anywhere faster in his life. When he got to the quinjet moments later Cap was starting the engines up while Tony stood in his non-nanosuit suit syncing their comm frequencies and pulling coordinates. As surreptitiously as he could, Peter snapped a picture with his phone. Ned was going to flip his shit when Peter told him! But to be fair Ned flipped his shit whenever Peter sent him Avenger stuff.

 

“Alright, Sam,” Steve addressed through his comm as he pulled the jet into the air. “You, Scott, and Nat keep trying to play catch up. Tony, Peter and I will try to cut them off from the north. Thor and Loki head towards the Queensboro bridge and hold your ground there. We’ll keep trying to get a hold of Strange and see if we can make this quick.”

 

“That is still so freaking weird,” Tony muttered, shaking his head.

 

“I know,” Steve commiserated, a hand to his ear. “But for a recovering mass murdering invader, he’s… improving.”

 

“We’re talking about Loki, right,” Peter chimed in, grabbing onto one of the wall supports to keep balance as they took off and sped south. “Can I just say it is like beyond cool that he’s an Avenger now. I mean invading earth super NOT cool, but saving it from other worser aliens kind of makes up for it right? Like it makes total sense with the whole the enemy of my enemy is my friend thing. So he’s cool.”

 

“Oh Spidey,” Tony sing-songed. “Did you forget your mute button again?”

 

Peter froze. “Oh shit…”

 

Someone was chuckling on the other end of their comms, someone who sounded suspiciously like the god in question.

 

…        …        …        …        …

 

The first thought that registered in Peter’s head after it was over was that he didn’t know how to get blood out of fabric.

 

It had soaked through the suit to his skin.

 

He could feel it every time he moved, every time he breathed.

 

_“I’m not what matters, kid…”_

 

Bullets.

 

Made of vibranium.

 

It punctured the suit like it was nothing.

 

_“I’m not what matters, kid…”_

 

Steve had shouted in his ear for Peter to move, to use his webs, to stop the rogue agents from crossing the Hudson.

 

But Peter had a dying man in his arms, in a suit that couldn’t stop the blood from flowing.

 

Strange had to step in.

 

_“I’m not what matters, kid…”_

 

It was easy for them to forget Peter had super-hearing.

 

He heard when they lost Mr. Stark once.

 

And twice.

 

_“I’m not what matters, kid…”_

 

He didn’t see people anymore, not Strange, not Dr. Banner, not the rest of the Avengers.

 

They were just shapes, amorphous, shadows and light, pieces of people fading in and out.

 

Peter had never thought about what it felt like to be the one left behind…

 

_“I’m not what matters, kid…”_

 

After a while, Rhodey pulled him to his feet and made him get out of his blood soaked suit. Rhodey said something about getting it cleaned before steering Peter to his room (at the compound) to get a shower. After the door closed behind him and he had some privacy Peter came out of his stupor a little bit. Friday started the shower and coaxed him toward it. Peter almost went out of it again by seeing the traces of blood left on his body from the suit.

 

When the hot spray hit him, Peter barely felt it. He crouched down under it and curled into a tight ball, rocking back and forth on his heels, tears hidden by the shower. His fingers fisted a handful of his hair too, but that pain didn’t break through his memories much either. He could still hear the impact of the bullets, the sounds they made, the sound Tony had made.

 

Friday kept trying to remind him where the soap and shampoo were, until Peter snapped at her and said he knew exactly where the fuck they were. He felt bad for snapping at her after that and promptly apologized. Jeez, what would Tony say if he ever knew Peter said that to her?

 

_“I’m not what matters, kid…”_

 

After the shower he mindlessly put on some jeans, a shirt, and a hoodie. His hair was still wet, still dripping, and for some reason it made him suddenly so sick to his stomach that he could hardly breathe. Mr. Stark was still dirty, still a mess. Why should Peter get any semblance of normalcy?

 

He froze.

 

Someone was crying. A woman. A woman that wasn’t Natasha.

 

Ms. Potts.

 

He needed to get out.

 

He needed to run.

 

He ripped the side drawer of his desk open and grabbed a small box. Inside was the wireless fob to a small white Audi that he and Tony had been using for his past four consecutive driving lessons. He threw a few things into his empty bookbag blindly, tears spilling over. All he knew was he needed to get out. He depressed the top button on the fob and opened one of his bedroom windows. It was cold, and the wind whipped at his wet hair, but he didn’t care.

 

He scaled the compound’s walls with his bare hands and feet. He would have soreness later without the aid of the suit, but Peter didn’t care about that either. Once he got on the cold ground he shoved some socks and shoes on after pressing another button. The Audi rolled up along side of him. It didn’t come to a full complete stop before Peter was yanking the driver’s door open. He tossed the bag into the back seat and slid into the driver’s seat, almost breaking the seatbelt with how fast he grabbed it and clicked it into place.

 

His heart felt like it was beating out of his chest.

 

“Peter,” Friday addressed through the center console. “I know boss said this car is yours to drive at any time, but if you are leaving the compound grounds you should have a passenger with you. I’m detecting inclimate weather moving in. Would you like me to call someone?”

 

“I need to be alone for a while, Friday,” he rasped. “I’ll be careful—I-I won’t go on any highways—just… _please_ open the gate?—I can’t be here!”

 

“Very well. But if one of the avengers or boss asks after your location I will have to tell them.”

 

_“I’m not what matters, kid…”_

 

Peter nearly started sobbing at the thought of Tony asking after him.

 

“Peter? I’m detecting emotional distress. Are you okay?”

 

Peter hit the mute button on the console and hit the gas a little harder than strictly necessary. The car sped down the drive, past the gate that just opened, and out onto the access road. He realized belatedly that he should have signaled or at the very least looked to make sure there wasn’t another car coming, but he didn’t hit anything so he left the thought behind until he came to the main road.

 

He came to a full stop and looked in the mirrors behind him.

 

No one was following him, but that only comforted him a little bit. He didn’t give a single thought to driving by himself for the first time. All he could think about as he left was that the one person he wanted to come after him… wouldn’t.


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay in the update. Been dealing with a lot of personal loss, so it’s taken me a while to get back to wanting to write, let alone actually doing it. I’ve got one more chapter planned after this, so prepare for an angst-fest here and enjoy, kiddos. Thanks again for reading.

_“Get after them,” were the first harsh words Tony spoke after taking bullets meant for Peter._

It had all been Steve’s fault.

 

Peter had just landed to take a breather, after webbing up the stragglers the team had been able to take down. Steve had fallen behind to ensure an entire bus of kids on a field trip didn’t end up in the line of fire. His only sense of time or placement was when, after he finished with three of the HYDRA soldiers, Peter quite literally dropped in.

 

_“Hey Cap,” Peter quipped, extending his arm out to web up the men Steve had just knocked out. “Did we get them all?”_

_It was on the tip of his tongue to tell Peter no. He started to turn around to face the kid after allowing himself to take a breath. He saw it in his periphery vision first. Movement. From the ground. Peter was looking up at him, not down at the ground. Steve lunged, but he knew it wouldn’t have been fast enough._

 

It had all happened so fast. Super-human fast. And somehow Tony had still managed to get there first.

_There hadn’t been much left of the HYDRA soldier when Steve got over the initial shock. The sight stole precious seconds away from his reaction time, because all he could see was the battlefield again. So many years ago. So much blood and death and inhumanity._

 

Peter’s voice was what brought him back.  

 

_Peter was arguing with Tony, stupidly pulling his mask off and throwing it aside before pressing his hands desperately and separately on two out of four bullet holes once he pried the suit apart. Tony coughed regardless, blood spilling from his mouth, and bit back more than a few moans of pain. And typical of the stubborn Avenger, he continued to try and coerce Peter into leaving him._

_Steve could already hear med-evac relaying they were on the way. His brain struggled to catch up with the how, because he could only think of one material that could break through Tony’s suit with such ease. He still managed to make his way over to them both and covered the other two holes with both of his hands._

_As he was about to tell Peter to put his mask back on, Tony decided to play his last card._

_“I’m not what matters, kid,” Tony breathed, losing his battle with consciousness._

_For a couple of minutes, an eternity, Peter had been hysterical, eventually trapped for his own safety in Steve’s arms when the med team finally arrived._

 

“Are you okay,” Bucky asked through the receiver of the cellphone pressed to Steve’s ear. “Steve?”

 

Steve blinked and took a breath before rubbing a hand down his face. “Just get here as soon as you can.”

 

“I’m on the first flight out. Hang in there. And watch out for the kid. He’s going to need you.”

 

“Will do,” he promised. “See you soon, Buck.”

 

Steve felt lucky after the call ended.

 

Sometimes it just felt like they were surviving as a team by mere threads. But whenever one of them went down like this, everyone pulled together like the team they used to be, before Germany. It gave him hope that after Thanos they could still depend on each other like this. It still left him feeling empty and tired at the end of the day because of the simultaneous dread and excitement for the next mission. It made him envious of people who could retire and just enjoy their lives and families. Not for the first time, Steve was starting to feel his age. Perhaps not physically, but mentally.

 

He could get used to the pastoral peace of the Wakandan fields…  

 

“Uh, guys,” Sam said with a guilty look on his face as he came into the room. “Peter kind of stole a car and left.”

 

“What,” Steve exclaimed loudly, nearly dropping his cell phone.

 

“Are you kidding me,” Bruce asked at the same time Rhodey exploded with, “What the fuck, Wilson! You were supposed to be watching him!”

 

“What’s the big deal,” Clint droned from the bar with an ice-pack on his shoulder. “The kid’s old enough. He probably just needs some air.”

 

“It’s a big **bad** deal,” Pepper snapped, eyes still red from earlier bouts of worry and crying. “Because Tony’s been helping Peter deal with his driving anxiety. Peter may be old enough to drive but he doesn’t even have his license yet!”

 

“Shit,” Natasha cursed, stealing the tablet from Clint (who was properly chastised into a guilty silence) and pulling up previous security footage. 

 

“Does he even have a permit,” Sam asked, incredulous.

 

“Tony’s been working on it with him,” Pepper explained, texting furiously on her phone. “He’s been giving him weekly driving lessons, but they haven’t managed to get him out on the roads yet.”

 

“Okay,” Scott hedged, his dad instinct immediately on high alert. “First off, do we know where he went or where he might have gone?”

 

“He’s heading upstate in a white Audi,” Nat relayed. “He’s got Friday muted, but I can get a location on him.”

 

“Friday,” Steve addressed. “Forward the plates to the police and tell them to get him off the road if they see him. Nat, once you got coordinates forward them to the police as well.”

 

“That’s gonna go over real well when the kid sees cops chasing him,” Clint pointed out, quiet but firm.

 

“You got a better idea,” Steve jabbed.

 

“Yeah, the quinjet.”

 

“That’s subtle,” Nat muttered, furiously typing away on the tablet.

 

“Brother,” Thor said, quiet and uncharacteristically quiet until now. “Can you reach him?”

 

Loki raised a surprised eyebrow from his lounged position on the couch as everyone’s attention in the room suddenly turned to him. After a moment, the god of mischief relented. “If the spider child was not a moving target, then yes, in theory I could temporarily project myself, but if he clearly does not have any wish of company I do not see how my presence will change matters.”

 

“Wait, are you talking astral projection,” Bruce asked.

 

“He can do that,” Scott asked with some worried side eye.

 

“Can you do that,” Steve asked in all seriousness. “Can you reach him?”

 

Eventually, after a pleading and concerned stare-down from multiple Avengers, Loki rolled his eyes and sighed in concession as he sat up. “If he is stationary for long enough I can and will attempt to speak to the child.”

 

Thor clapped a proud hand on Loki’s shoulder with a big grin, to which Loki glared at him until his brother removed his hand.

 

“Okay,” Steve sighed. “That’s as good a plan B as we can get—”

 

“Oh shit,” Bruce cursed, running back to the medbay. “Tony’s waking up!”

 

…        …        …        …        …

 

Shit, it was snowing.

 

Lower speed.

 

Shit it was still snowing.

 

Windshield wipers.

 

Oh shit, it was sticking.

 

Why were the tires making that noise?

 

Don’t break the steering wheel, don’t break the steering wheel, don’t break the steering wheel—

 

_“Oh no, now it’s snowing,” Tony dramatically play-acted from the passenger seat. “What do you do?”_

_Peter stared at him, a deer in headlights, completely at a loss. “Uhhhhhhhhhhhh—”_

_“A lower gear?” Tony chided._

_“Right,” Peter exclaimed, hand shooting to the gearshift, but Tony’s hand stopped him._

_“Is this car a stick shift or automatic?”_

_“Automatic so… I have to stop first?”_

_Tony clapped his hands together. “It learns!”_

 

Peter signaled, checked his side mirror, and pulled off onto the shoulder of the road he was on. He threw it forward into park and stared. Shit. He was in reverse, not park. Fuck—mistakemistakemistakemistake—fixitfixitfixit—FUCK! Panic bubbled up in his throat as he reached down and tried to shift gears again, but it was stuck. FUCK. He whimpered as he pressed down on the brake with a little more force than necessary and tried to shift gears again with a shaking hand. NO—NOT Lower—but…fuck it. He was in the correct gear for the snow.

 

He started to move forward and out onto the road again.

 

An SUV blared its horn and sped past him.

 

Peter swerved back onto the shoulder, realizing belatedly he really fucking needed to use his mirrors.

 

This time he actually managed to throw it into park because he was well into a panic attack by the way his chest was burning.

 

God. What the fuck was he doing? Where the fuck was he going?

 

Tony was dying, or dead by now, Peter didn’t know—couldn’t bear to know. All he knew was that he couldn’t stand to lose another father. Knowing what that blood felt like between his fingers was his worst nightmare brought to life. It was all just too much.

 

“Come back, little spider.”

 

Peter’s head whipped to his right. He didn’t cry out in surprise, but his heart did leap into his throat when he saw Loki, of all people, sitting right next to him in the passenger seat. Loki was probably the type who didn’t like people staring at him like Peter was, but he couldn’t really help it because first of all _how?_ Second of all _why?_

Without warning, the god tried to reach over toward Peter. He was embarrassed to admit that he flinched and gripped the steering wheel a little too tightly. Loki froze and locked eyes with him again, much like a larger animal would look at a small cornered animal, trying to assess whether or not the smaller animal would flee.

 

“Calm down…” Loki said softly, almost echo-like, but with a very serious stare. “And turn the engine off. Please?”

 

Peter took a breath and broke eye contact to stare at the keys. With a shaking hand, Peter did as asked, silence finally filling the car. He could hear his own shaky breathing, but for the first time in the past hour he’d finally been able to take a real breath. Staring ahead did nothing to calm him down, because internally he was as much of a freak-out category five hurricane as… before they got back to the compound after the mission. But having the freedom to take his hands off the wheel, off any of the controls, helped.

 

They still shook against his legs.

 

Peter expected to hear a lecture from his hallucination, but nothing came. Peter didn’t look at him, but couldn’t help feeling confused. Why the hell would a hallucination not take the opportunity to berate him for his utter stupidity? He didn’t know what he was doing driving a car by himself, much less in snow and without a permit. He was just about to ask, when the god beat him to it. 

 

“Return to the compound and I will teach you about self-projection,” the god offered beside him.

 

Peter turned to him again and frowned. Self…? Oh. Astral projection. If Peter were in a different emotional state he would have been impressed. Excited, even. Now, he felt nothing.

 

So, definitely not a hallucination.

 

Part of him was disappointed. There was safety and comfort in being alone with no one but himself, even if he was seeing things. Being alone with any of the avengers would have had Peter cowing in humiliation. Being alone with Loki though set Peter on edge, not because he was afraid of the god but because he never knew what the god was thinking… or whether he even liked Peter.

 

A semi flew by in the far-left lane, stirring up snow and ice as it passed.

 

“Why did you call me that,” Peter asked, quietly.

 

Loki frowned. “Little spider?”

 

Peter looked at him for an answer.

 

“Agent Romanov calls you that.”

 

“I have a name.”

 

“As do we all, but you seem most at ease when she calls you such.”

 

Peter leaned further back against his seat and took a breath. “Why are you here?”

 

“They’re worried about you.”

 

Peter rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Yeah, I could have guessed that.”

 

“You’re angry,” Loki asked in a confused tone.

 

“Maybe I am,” Peter exclaimed in a raised voice, finally turning his head to glare at the god. “I can’t be alone for at least an hour before someone freaks out about me, so excuse me for being a little pissed and needing some space from the only _fucking_ family I have left!”

 

_That_ wasn’t fair and Peter knew it, but God did it feel good to get off his chest. He heaved a heavy sigh and covered his face with his hands. He knew he still had Aunt May. He didn’t even want to think about losing her too. But he wasn’t unaware of the tenuous nature of human life, despite all the death-defying stunts he knew he pulled on a daily basis as Spider-man. He was just _tired._ He was so _tired_ of losing people he loved. It never stops hurting. It just _never fucking **stops…**_ And when he thinks he’s gone through the grief cycle for the final time, it starts right back over again and it’s endless.

 

His face crumbled into misery and he knew he was about to lose it and start openly sobbing like a child, but all it took was one syllable from Loki to bring Peter back to himself.

 

“Peter—”

 

“No. You know what,” Peter interrupted, eyes traitorously teary but steeled in furious resolve. “Having parents is a joke and I’m tired of losing fathers because I clearly don’t deserve them!” He paused only briefly to turn the ignition over. “You can tell Steve to call off the search party he’s got going because I’m _done_. And… tell Pepper I’m sorry…”

 

“Child, you don’t understand—”

 

“Piss! Off,” he shouted in desperation and anger, heedless of the tears freely flowing down his face.

 

He thinks he finally shocked the god of mischief into silence, and for that Peter felt really satisfied with himself. So, he shifted the car back into drive and hit the accelerator. Remarkably the car didn’t skid out and took to the icy roads like a champ. After a few moments Peter looked to his right and saw that he was alone again. He reveled in the satisfaction for the next three miles.

 

Then the agony of loss and misery started to creep back in. And guilt. And embarrassment.

 

It wasn’t like he hated Loki. Peter had often defended the god to the other Avengers because he thought Loki was just misunderstood, regardless of the points he knew he was scoring in Thor’s book. Maybe they were worried about him. Maybe even Loki was worried about him. And all Peter had done was throw that concern back in their faces.

 

This wasn’t him.

 

This had never been him.

 

He’d had bad days after Uncle Ben died, but he’d never acted like such a brat to Aunt May. If she knew what he’d just done he’d be in for the world’s longest and probably loudest _lecture_. It was so tempting to just call her. But the Bluetooth hadn’t been set up in the car yet. He really didn’t want to unmute F.R.I.D.A.Y. because he needed to be alone.

 

But did he really?

 

He gripped the steering wheel tighter and signaled before making a sharp right onto a side road through the mountains. Initially he thought he could just get off the highway and find a shoulder to pull off onto and call her, but the road he was on didn’t have a shoulder. In fact, the lanes were smaller. And growing smaller the further he went. There were no other roads to turn off.

 

Shit.

 

Just another fuck up for another utterly and royally fucked up day.

 

He could even feel the beginnings of another migraine behind his eyes.

 

Peter forcibly blew out a breath as he continued down the road, eyes still overflowing and blurring his vision.

 

He fucking needed help.

 

He needed someone to tell him it would be fucking okay.

 

He needed Tony.

 

That was why he gave in and reached over to grab his phone.

 

That was why he took his eyes off the road for a split-second.

 

As irony would have it, something stepped out into his path.

 

It was a young speckled fawn.

 

…        …        …        …        …

 

“Take it easy, Tony,” Bruce said, pushing him back down. “You only got out of surgery a few hours ago.”

 

Tony glared in frustration at his dearest and only science bro, but his last shred of patience was gone. He’d asked the same question ten times and nobody was giving him a fucking answer. He was starting to worry something had happened to his kid that he couldn’t remember. He did remember taking those four bullets for him. But had there been more? Had Peter been shot too? “Where. Is. Peter?”

 

“Tony,” Steve began from his position beside the bed.

 

“Steve,” Tony interrupted. “I swear to god if you tell me one more time someone’s getting him I’m getting out of this fucking bed to find him myself!”

 

“Alright! I’ll tell you,” the soldier relented. “But you need to calm down.”

 

Tony glared. “I’ll calm down when I see my kid.”

 

“Tony,” Pepper said by his bedside in a chair, trying and failing as well to get him to lay back down. “Please, listen?”

 

He sighed. “Then someone needs to start talking,” he demanded, successfully hiding a wince of pain.

 

“We thought we lost you twice,” Bruce admitted. “Peter must have heard that and panicked. He took a car and drove off by himself.”

 

Tony took in a labored breath and breathed out a curse before setting his jaw. “ _Where?_ ”

 

“We didn’t notice he was gone until an hour after he left,” Steve further admitted. “But Nat’s trying to track him and figure out where he is. We’ve even got Loki on it as backup in case that doesn’t work.”

 

“Yeah, like that’s going to help,” Tony said, throwing his legs over the side of the bed, unable to hide his wince this time. “Friday, track his suit.”

 

“Don’t bother,” Rhodey said, entering with a grim face. “It’s here.”

 

Tony frowned. “What-why is it here?!”

 

“Because it’s covered in your blood, Tony. Glad you’re not dead.”

 

“Yeah, likewise. Friday, track his phone!”

 

“Mr. Parker’s phone is currently located on his bedside table inside the compound, boss.”

 

“God damn it, Parker,” Tony spat. “What about the car?”

 

“Last known location two miles off the Saugerties exit of Interstate 87.”

 

“That’s up in the Catskills,” Rhodey said with a frown. “Why would he go up there?”

 

But that wasn’t what had Tony’s heart monitor blaring a loud warning.

 

“What do you mean _last known location?_ How long ago was that?”

 

“Half an hour ago, sir,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. replied. “I’ve lost connection with the vehicle and have been unable to reconnect.”

 

That doesn’t happen with his tech.

 

It just fucking doesn’t.

 

No matter where his trackers were.

 

“Either it’s the snowstorm,” Natasha summarized with grim realization. “Or something happened to the car.”

 

…        …        …        …        …

 

Peter groaned as he came to.

 

He had a massive headache, not quite like his migraines, but just worse. Like he fell and brained himself on the concrete or something. Did he fall from a skyscraper again?

 

There was something dripping down the side of his face. Or was it up?

 

Darn, his whole left side kind of hurt. He shifted and cried out in surprise because **_God damn_** _that hurt worse!_ The sudden pain was the impetus for Peter’s eyes to finally pry themselves open.

 

Oh.

 

He was upside down. That made more sense. But what in the shit was he staring at? They looked like pillows—Airbags.

 

Oh fuck.

 

That woke him the rest of the way up, choking on dryness in his throat and some painful deep chest coughs. After it he sucked in what dusty air he could, despite the strangely pervasive sharp taste and smell of something he couldn’t immediately place, he took stock of his surroundings.

 

Fuck.

 

He’d done the exact same thing when he’d been buried by a building. This time it was a car, but he wasn’t sure which was worse at the moment.

 

Fuck.

 

Don’t have another panic attack. Don’t have another panic attack. Don’t have another fucking panic attack. 

 

What he could see of the windshield was an intricate green spiderweb, an endless mosaic of cracks. It would probably crumble if he touched it. Why were his arms above his head—oh, right, upside down. Damn it. Ow. Moving fucking sucked. His fingers were slick with something, probably blood. Great.

 

But fuck.

 

The car. **He wrecked the fucking car.** Just like he fucking wrecked everything in his stupid life! He could feel the panic try to take over, make his chest burn worse than it already was because of all that wasted time. All those lessons had been for fucking nothing because he wrecked another car. And this time he wrecked _Tony’s_ car…

 

And Tony wouldn’t even be here to fucking yell at him…

 

Fuck, he wanted to be yelled at!

 

Peter gritted his teeth together and tried not to cry, forcing himself to exhaust his breathing exercises and vocally coach himself down. “Come on, come on, you’re fine, you’re fine, you’re fine, you’re okay, fuck…Shit,” he breathed, finally. “Okay… okay… come on, seatbelt.” He braced himself against the ceiling and reached down with the other arm to depress the seatbelt button.

 

But it was jammed. Of course it was jammed. Shit. Shit, shit, shit, what was he supposed to do…

 

_“It’s for cutting the seatbelt if you ever have to,” Tony said, holding up the butt end of a pocket flip knife. There was a small blade set into the bottom side more than midway down the handle. A piece of metal prevented the holder from accidentally cutting him or herself, but to Peter it was just another weapon._

_“How is this supposed to make me feel better about driving a car,” Peter quipped back in a higher pitched tone of trying his best not to show he was freaking out._

_“Because if shit goes sideways you can get yourself out, that’s how. This isn’t about defending yourself (hopefully). It’s about saving your own ass if you ever have to.” Tony additionally sighed and gave Peter the serious look. “This is if I can’t get to you. Okay?”_

 

Peter reached with a groan and pried open the crushed compartment beneath the console, remembering their subsequent argument about placement.

 

_“Being on a key ring with the keys is more accessible than in a console,” Peter argued. “I mean, what if I can’t get that open—then it’s useless!”_

_Tony tossed the closed knife to Peter who caught it._

_“You feel how heavy that thing is? You want to ruin your ignition, be my guest, but I promise you, because this is **you** we’re talking about, the console is the safest place for it. If that thing goes flying it’s just one extra thing that could hurt you, and that’s also if the keys come out of the ignition. You think you’ll have the time to mess around with a fucking key ring?”_

 

The whole argument seemed so stupid to him now.

 

But he could hear the man’s voice so clearly in his head, and despite the tears it brought, it guided him and gave him focus.

 

The knife almost fell out, but Peter had enough dexterity left to grab it before it fell out of his reach. He took a breath and then braced himself again before hooking the belt cutter part of the tool against the seat belt. It actually cut through the material with ease, which made Peter fall up onto the roof of the car in an awkward pile of limbs.

 

**That** fucking hurt too.

 

He almost blacked out, but forced himself to breathe through it and arrange himself in a position amongst the glass and wreckage that didn’t hurt so much. On his back seemed the best option for now, despite his inability to stretch out his legs. It still didn’t help his throbbing left side or his splitting headache, but at least he could take a deeper breath. Almost immediately he remembered the cramped and crushed feeling of the building the Vulture dropped onto him. He clamped his mouth shut as he whined and grabbed onto a nearby piece of the car to ground himself.

 

Do the breathing exercises.

 

Again.

 

And again.

 

Fuck.

 

What was in the air?

 

“Ffffriday,” he moaned. “Friday? Ugh. Un… unmute… Friday?”

 

Nothing. Great.

 

The windshield airbags were right in front of him blocking what would have been a very obvious way out, but miraculously, despite the shattered appearance of the windshield there was no opening anyway. Peter turned his head gingerly to his right, knowing the airbag on his left driver’s side window was the same. For some reason the right passenger side window airbag didn’t deploy, and the window was also a spider-mess of cracked but intact glass too.

 

Staying in here really wasn’t an option if he wanted to get help.

 

_Think, Parker._

 

Ugh, he really didn’t want to turn over and crawl into the back, but the back windshield was gone (thanks to a thick tree branch) and the only obvious way out at present. Snow and ice had blown in. There was even a decent coating, or maybe even an inch, built up back there. Probably overtop of the glass which was just perfect. But what other choice did he have?

 

So, he began turning himself over, which of course had to be to his left.

 

Ow.

 

Ow.

 

Jesus, ow.

 

That was when his mind connected the two and realized what the smell was.

 

Gas. And smoke. Shit, was the car on fire?!

 

He crawled and pulled himself out of the back window on pure adrenalin. All sorts of movies with exploding cars ran through his head and all he could think about was how much he did not want to end up burning to death in a freaking blizzard. It would be such fucking Parker luck that he would, but that was not going to happen. Snow and ice immediately pelted his face out in the open. He couldn’t see, but he kept going, having to squeeze and pull himself out the back opening because of how big the tree limb was. After a while, when he got to a low-lying part of the hillside that wasn’t getting pelted with constant wind and ice, he turned around to look at the smoking car, which was now at a comfortable distance.

 

He couldn’t tell how many times he must have flipped it, but it looked like several. If this wasn’t a physical embodiment of the metaphor for how he was feeling inside at being fatherless yet again, then maybe he should have stayed dusted on Titan. It was a bit of a miracle that he got out on his own, and smoke in a blizzard wouldn’t work well for visibility, so he assumed if anybody was even attempting to look for him they would have a hard time doing it.

 

Maybe he should have stayed in the car. It would have been warmer. Even if Peter would have died in an explosion. Being out here, he was more likely to freeze to death. Though he wasn’t sure which method would be slower. He remembered the first time he almost accidentally froze to death. It would be like going to sleep. Eventually. That sounded nice right about now. Because everything still hurt so much.

 

…        …        …        …        …

 

“I don’t care,” Tony barked behind Clint who was in the pilot’s seat of the quinjet. “Push through it!”

 

“Nobody can fly through a blizzard, Stark,” Clint snapped back. “You wanna clip a few trees and crash the quinjet too, then be my fucking guest, but these winds are gonna put us into the ground faster than you can say fucking Asgard.” He turned to Thor with an almost apologetic glance. “No offense.”

 

“Then get as close as you can and fall back until we need you,” the billionaire called, turning and heading in that direction, followed by Rhodey, Steve, Sam, and Bruce.

 

“Tony,” Steve called in that knowing voice. “You won’t be able to sustain a safe flight pattern in that med suit. It’s going to burn through your back up energy too fast. We’ve gone over this.”

 

“No shit, Cap,” the man snapped, beads of sweat dripping down the side of his face. “Unless you want to sprout some wings and help—”

 

“I’ll spot him,” Rhodey jumped in. “But you need to stay up here like we decided earlier regardless of how it looks out there. And we need to make this fast because the temp’s gonna drop once that next band makes its way through, so don’t go changing the plan just because that’s what you do to get your way.”

 

Tony would have rolled his eyes if he had the energy, but the ground was annoyingly uneven at the moment. “Et tu, Rhodes?”

 

Rhodey just gave him the _don’t_ look, before pointing to a nearby seat. “ _Park it._ ”

 

Tony glared at him, because he _needed_ to be down there searching for Peter. He needed to find him. He needed to know what happened. He needed his kid safe and sound and not frozen to death like the first time—which wasn’t even all that long ago because it was last fucking winter. His mind was so preoccupied with the kid that he didn’t even notice he was starting to sway dangerously to the right.

 

“Tony,” Bruce called next to his ear, arms supporting him upright. “Alright, that’s it. Sit down for me. Come on…”

 

Bruce tried to pull him over to the chair, but it was getting harder for the billionaire to refuse with knees that suddenly didn’t want to support his weight. Tony groaned. “I’m fine—”

 

Loki snorted and shook his head at the same time Steve snapped with an angry “No, you’re not!—”

 

“He needs me,” Tony shouted back, making himself dizzy in the process, and all too easy for Bruce to finally push him into the seat.

 

“You’re right,” Steve admitted. “He does. And killing yourself by physically going after him hours after surgery isn’t going to help him. Rhodey’s got Friday just like you do. For Peter you need to stay here and listen to what your body’s telling you.”

 

“We’re wasting time,” Rhodey whispered. “Let us do this for you, Tones. Please? You can patch yourself into my feed if you want, but we need to go _now_.”

 

“I’ve got medical on standby back at the compound,” Bruce added. “Listen, if they just get him in the spare med suit I’ll do what I can here on the quinjet until we get him back home. They’ll find him, Tony.”

 

He hated everything about this. Just about everyone but Clint, Nat, and Tony were going out to look for Peter, and he had to stay here and just fucking watch. The only thing he could think about since he stepped foot onto the jet were the last words he said to the kid.

 

Tony knew Peter. That was the terrible part. He knew how much it would have killed the kid to hear it, and Tony had gone and said it anyway to try and spare him the sight. He felt like the shittiest fucking dad on the planet then _and_ now. Going to hell and back to simply bring him and half the universe back to life hadn’t been enough. Could Tony legitimately hope that he’d get a third chance to not fuck this kid up for good?

 

“Just find my kid,” Tony said, voice breaking toward the end.

 

…        …        …        …        …

 

Frost giants did not feel the cold as other beings did.

 

The whipping snow and ice was rather annoying, all things considered, but Loki was having a much easier time traversing and searching the terrain than most of the other Avengers. Part of his physiology, discovered very late in life, and under the cruelest of circumstances, was his ability to curtain through the storm at will. He could have made it easier for Thor, he supposed, but that would entail more use of his magic. The projection had by no means made him weak, but he had always been one to conserve and only expend when absolutely necessary.

 

Thor was not too far behind him, grumbling and griping about the unrelenting weather in his sleeveless armor. Norns knew he would have protested more vocally perhaps if he’d still been wearing that ridiculous red cape, because surely in this storm it would have proved Loki’s long-suffered argument that some lack of vanity was only practical in some cases. But alas, his brother’s lack of foresight and intelligence would constantly be a thorn in the side of Loki’s desire for vindication.

 

It had taken him a while to adopt Midgard’s fashion for clothes, but he had to admit the black woolen coat he’s stolen from Stark, and resized to fit himself, was rather useful being that it fit close to his body and still allowed for full range of movement. But the shoes. Nevermind the abysmal nature of their shoes. He stuck with the same boots he’d worn for the past five hundred years because they had been a gift from a mage whose life he saved on Vanaheim. They would never wear as normal shoes inevitably would, and the traction was impeccable. Especially in snow and ice.

 

Perhaps he’d had an unfair advantage, having felt the storm from so far away, but it wasn’t like anyone asked him.

 

Perched on the edge of a slick rocky outcrop, Loki peered down into a valley as his hair whipped up and to his right. The farther west they traversed the more difficult the terrain became. More rocks, more mountains, and more trees. To find anything man made outside of the poorly maintained roads was by each minute becoming more remote a possibility. He would have sniped into the communicational piece Stark had reluctantly given him some time ago, but his had been destroyed in the mission earlier today by pure accident. He would leave the arguments for both sides of the story to others more interested than he. The silence was a welcome companion again.

 

Loki supposed he could have entrusted his ire with Thor to relay, but the moment the thought appeared in his mind, he saw it.

 

The lightly still smoking wreckage.

 

“I’ve lost sight of the others,” Thor groused, finally catching up with Loki.  “I do not know how you can see in this wretched weather.”

 

“If you had my abilities,” Loki cautioned, standing up straight with an ugly feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Perhaps you would wish you could not. Tell them what’s left of the car is down in the valley a mile north of here.”

 

Thor followed more closely as they continued on and eventually began the descent down the mountain. The disturbance of nature and the bent forms of some smaller trees had apparently been most disconcerting to Stark, because Loki had to listen to Thor attempt to comfort the man.

 

There would be time for comfort when the boy was alive and well. If he was alive. Or well.

 

Loki knew before they reached the mangled mess of metal that the boy wasn’t inside. He left Thor to search for clues as he wandered the perimeter. When the Colonel and Captain arrived it nearly turned into a mourning party by the defeated slump of both men’s shoulders.

 

“Damn it, kid,” Colonel Rhodes cursed.

 

“He’s not inside, Tony,” Captain Rodgers assuaged from his knelt position next to what was the driver’s side window. “He got out… I know… He knows that… There’s no way he didn’t wear it because it’s cut—”

 

“Question is,” Rhodes added. “Where did he go? My sensors got nothing.”

 

Clearly, Loki had to do everything. So, he rolled his eyes, sighing loudly, and took off into the thick of the storm, heedless of the useless protests behind him. Because as predicted, they began to follow him anyway. It was tedious work for his eyes, discerning the unnatural drifts of snow as they descended further down into the valley. Loki rarely liked to follow hunches, but was rewarded before long at finding a few droplets of blood.

 

“Loki,” Thor called. “Brother, slow down!”

 

“You may repeat that after we find the boy dead,” Loki called back. “Keep up or stay behind! I care not which!” He truly had no patience left for any more idiocy today.

 

It wasn’t long after finding the blood that they found the boy’s frozen body. He was curled against a tree and nearly covered by a snow drift, pale as death itself. But Loki knew better. He approached the boy and knelt down next to him. Without the need for physical contact, Loki could feel how weak the pulse was. It would have been nearly imperceptible to anyone else—that was how tenuous his hold on life still was.

 

“Oh fuck!”

 

“Send the med-suit, now!”

 

“Is he alive,” Thor asked, finally.

 

“Barely,” the god replied, positioning his body to shield the boy from the relentless wind. He closed his eyes and reached inward toward his core. Between his hands an amber light began to glow. As the light grew his skin changed, inch by inch turning Jotun blue.

 

“Brother, what are you doing,” Thor worriedly asked.

 

“Saving his mortal life,” Loki groused, shifting closer in the snow towards the cold body of the boy. “Now, shut up.”

 

He adjusted his grip and held the ball of light in one hand next to Peter’s blue lips. With his other hand he worked Peter’s stiff jaw open and waited. Little sparks of amber started to fall into the boy’s mouth. It took a minute, but color started to rapidly return to Peter’s skin, and most importantly his chest started to move with deeper breaths, body eventually starting to shake with the cold. 

 

“Oh my god,” Rhodey breathed.

 

“It will only keep him warm for so long,” Loki warned, panting. “Eventually it will turn to his injuries and continue its work there.”

 

They opened the medical suit when it arrived and quickly lifted Peter out of the snow and into the suit, closing it about his small body. Once it was closed, the Colonel took off next to it, telling them he would return shortly.  

 

When Loki went to stand, he stumbled and would have fallen in the snow if it hadn’t been for Thor grabbing him and keeping him upright. His vision blurred and began to tunnel inward, but he stubbornly clung to consciousness. Oh, yes… there would surely be a headache before all of this was over.

 

The things he suffered for iron men and little spiders…

 

…        …        …        …        …

 

Peter didn’t know what to expect.

 

Pain? Grogginess? A nasty taste in his mouth? Sore muscles? A terrible headache? Those were usually the norm when he was waking up after something bad happened to him. This time, however, felt like it was any other normal day. No pain. No grogginess. No nothing out of the norm. But he knew something was odd because he was in the med bay. In a bed. He knew that smell. He knew those sounds. So why was he feeling _not_ hurt for once?

 

He lifted his head from the pillow to look around in confusion.

 

How did he get here?

 

Where was everyone?

 

What had happened?

 

“Hey,” a voice said to his left. “Next time you wanna give your old man a chance to come back to life before giving up on me?”

 

Peter froze when he saw a very tired, worn, and disheveled Tony Stark sitting in a chair next to him. The man looked terrible. His hair was an unwashed mess and he was pale with dark bags under his eyes. But to Peter it was everything he could have asked for.

 

“M’dead, right,” Peter rasped.

 

Tony closed his eyes and shook his head slowly, a puff of amused air being snorted out his nose. “Metaphorically speaking, maybe. But literally, not while I’m alive, kiddo.”

 

The sound of that voice brought tears to Peter’s eyes. Was it real? Were they both alive? Had Mr. Stark not died? Was Peter not hallucinating again? “Tony?”

 

“Yeah, Pete?”

 

Peter surged forward to wrap his arms around the man. Tony got up a little slower than usual and moved to sit on the bed to better hold Peter. Those arms around him were tight and warm and perfect. It made him openly sob like a child. Tony just held him through it all against his chest. He whispered reassurances and apologies above Peters head, one hand even carding fingers through Peter’s also likely gross hair—but he so didn’t care.

 

“I’m sorry,” Peter gasped miserably. “I’m sorry I wrecked the car—”

 

“ _I don’t give a single **flying fuck** about the car, Peter._ God,” he breathed. “Don’t ever fucking scare me like that again. The first time was enough.”

 

“I-I thought you were—”

 

“I know. I’m sorry, kid,” he whispered next to his ear. “But you have to know I ** _cannot_** lose you again. Do you understand me?”

 

“I can’t lose you,” Peter whined, shaking his head. “I don’t want to! I don’t want to—”

 

“I know. We’ll talk about it later, okay? You’re okay. I’m right here.”

 

Tony shifted them again, so they could both comfortably lie back against the bed. That was how Peter eventually slept again, blissfully without any dreams, comfortably in Tony’s arms with the beating of the man’s heart beneath his cheek. It was the most comforting sound he’d ever heard.


End file.
